


as i'm sitting here, doing nothing but aging

by missdulcerosea



Category: Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
Genre: ...kind of?, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Songfic, anyways here i am sitting alone crying because of these two, but because of how UNDERRATED they are i love them, but with more emphasis on "hurt" than comfort, like. only BARELY tbh, not just their dynamic and relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:48:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23323459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missdulcerosea/pseuds/missdulcerosea
Summary: Perrin wishes this wasn't Rand's burden to bear.
Relationships: Rand al'Thor/Perrin Aybara
Kudos: 7





	as i'm sitting here, doing nothing but aging

He holds Rand as close as can be, yet he has never been farther away.

That’s what it smells like. That is not what it feels like, but what _is_. Perrin lies on his back with Rand in his arms, head buried against his shoulder. This is Rand, he tells himself, this is not what they once had and are still reaching for, this is what they _have_. _This is us,_ Perrin tells himself.

But it is not. Because he holds a stranger close to him (a stranger that only shares the same name). What happened to the boy he knew from the Two Rivers, the one who would always cover his tracks when they played hide-and-seek and brought Perrin half-crumbled dandelions when he was sick? What happened to those nights they spent together so early on in their travels, using that secret code of fingers twining together for just a split second and then parting, the warmth of those kisses they let pass between them? They’re just memories and already growing dim in his mind.

(He knows a little about what’s been happening. But he will never know what it is like to have that voice—Lews Therin—echoing in his head, and everything else. He is a main character, another puppet on the stage like Rand is, but his strings don’t move the same way. The world will keep on turning.)

Rand’s breathing comes out ragged but he still isn’t crying. He thinks that he has to freeze himself and though Perrin wants nothing more than to thaw him, because he thinks that if Rand goes on like this he’ll surely die. Not in the traditional sense, with the play ending, but in the sense that Rand is swallowed up by the character he plays and the person he once was will be dead. He’ll have stopped breathing.

The Wheel turns. They’ve both changed and seen months pass them by. They’ve been twisted and molded, almost all the way gone.

So Perrin holds onto what they have left, rocking Rand back and forth in his arms as he mourns what they once had and what they have left to lose.

**Author's Note:**

> i was having a meltdown as i wrote this and it sure reads like it!
> 
> (i think there was a discord server advertised for this sort of stuff - like angst or hurt/comfort - but i'm too young to join. anyways, i'm more invested in the hurt part of hurt/comfort. like shakespearean tragedy and "being meguca is sUFFERING" levels of hurt anyways. it's a catharsis i suppose)
> 
> but enough of my weird ramblings. i thought about how rand and perrin's relationship changed, especially with the one scene where they started out staging a fight and then their attacking each other grew genuine and my heart just broke. ;-; i promise next time i write for these two it'll be something a little more cheerful.
> 
> it's really late. i should probably go to sleep. good night and take care <3


End file.
